Angleton, TX

Flag at half staff at car dealer in Angleton. For the late, great Pope John Paul II.

Brazoria County, TX

Rolled bales of hay on Hwy 35 between Alvin and Angleton.

Alvin, TX

A good place to eat.

Houston, TX

American flag at half staff for Pope John Paul II on the South Loop.

Houston, TX

Headed north on Kirby Drive, holy crap, WHAT'S THAT? Oh, a horned armadillo. OK. Pretty good traffic stopper for Jim Goode's new enterprise, located across the street from his famous Goode Co. Barbecue.

Houston, TX

Rush hour traffic, West Loop.

Manvel, TX

A corporate business center of some sort is going up in little Manvel, Texas, located west of Alvin on Hwy 6.

Houston, TX

Another shot at Texas Pipe & Supply on Hwy 288.

Houston, TX

The Texas Pipe & Supply Co. has provided a roadside attraction to motorists on Texas Hwy. 288. Let's take a quick tour.

Waving to motorists on Hwy 288.

Monkey bidness.

It's a jungle out there.

Don't run over this one.

Bossy in the sky w/ diamonds.

Texas arachnoid.

Lake Jackson, TX

Here we are at the Abner Jackson Plantation, where a fella named Abner Jackson had a sugar plantation back in slave days. It's also the site of Lake Jackson, the oxbow lake for which the City of Lake Jackson is named. Lake Jackson is about an hour's drive south of Houston, and about a 45 minute drive from Galveston to the east.

This is where the side porch of the plantation was located. Slave boys who served the Jackson family their dinner were told to whistle while they worked in order to discourage them from tasting the food, according to the LJ Historical Association.

Photo of the old plantation, along with an explanation of how one of Abner Jackson's sons killed the other, then fathered a son by the family's slave house-maid Rosa, whose descendants now number about 500.

Lake Jackson is believed to have been an oxbow of the Brazos River, back when a portion of the river followed Oyster Creek. It was not dug by slaves, as legend has it, according to local historians.

Except for the Abner Jackson Plantation, Lake Jackson is ringed by private property where some of the higher-dollar homes in the city are located. Actually, those homes are technically outside the city limits. The area is known as Lake Jackson Farms.

"Enchanted Oak" is on the south bank of Lake Jackson. It's older than anybody in town.

Some of the artifacts recovered from archaeological digs at the plantation.

What's left of the sugar mill.

Another view of the sugar mill.

Another sugar mill photo.